In recent years, mobile station (e.g., smartphone) usage has significantly increased. Mobile station users often purchase voice and data plans that allow the users to prepay for voice and data services provided by a wireless network provider. Prepaid price plans have evolved to offer unlimited voice and messaging as well as diverse capped data plans.
Presently, for every voice and message communication originating from (or terminated at) a mobile station, a voice and message network element of the wireless network provider validates with a charging system if there is sufficient account balance for the voice and message communication. Such validation can occur even when the user has purchased an unlimited data and voice plan or a capped data plan that has not yet expired. Thus, for each call or data request, there can be an interaction between the voice and messaging network element and the charging system. As a result, mobile stations subscribed to such plans can contribute to wastage of network resources.
As the foregoing illustrates, a new approach for managing charging system traffic with consideration to such concerns may be desirable.